Motorcycle tyres have come a long way in the last 25 years. From the very first radial thanks to the emergence of bikes that were too powerful for the old bias-ply construction tyres in the 1980’s, to multi compound tyres at the start of the 21st century technology has been advancing very very quickly to deliver levels of performance that could not have been imagined a quarter of a century ago. Up until five or so years ago, could you ever have imagined doing a track day on a sport touring tyre like the Battlax T30 which Ron Haslam now uses on his race school bikes?
It is very difficult to even comprehend just how far we have come in such a short space of time, so earlier this year the team at Bridgestone had a thought; why not prove it with numbers on the racetrack? Along with the help of Motorcycle News in their 26th March edition, Bridgestone kitted out a pair of Suzuki GSX-R600s, one with Battlax BT-014s and the other with the Battlax T30 and both on stock suspension settings.
The Battlax BT-014 was Bridgestone’s first MotoGP derived tyre which featured technologies directly handed down from international circuits to standard road bikes. It was a “hot and sticky” hypersport tyre which back in it’s day won the MCN 2004 ‘Tyre of the Year’ award. On the other hand the Battlax T30 is Bridgestone’s current premium sport touring tyre, designed to offer excellent wet and dry grip along with plenty of mileage.
Putting both bikes in the hands of senior road tester Michael Neeves, the team let the stopwatch do the talking as each bike was put through it’s paces over the course of five laps at the Angelsey Coastal Circuit and the difference in times spoke volumes. The difference between the fastest lap on the older Battlax BT-014 and the newer Battlax T30 was 0.68 seconds, and the more laps they did the wider the gaps in performance became with the Battlax T30 sport touring tyre providing a level of consistency that just wasn’t there ten years earlier in an award winning hypersport product.
As Tim Thompson, senior editor at MCN puts it; “Year on year it’s hard to feel the incremental improvements in rubber – this years black and round things feel much like last year’s. But riding two pairs of tyres separated by a decade of MotoGP driven development makes things crystal clear. Modern touring rubber such as the Bridgestone T30 has not only the endurance to last the average rider two years, but also enough grip and performance not to be embarrassed in a club race. We’re already close to having the perfect tyre.”
Following the time trial, the tester’s scored the old sports tyre and the current sport touring tyre on aspects such as warm up, turn in, edge grip and stability. In every aspect the newer Battlax T30 sport touring tyre was the clear winner, the Battlax BT-014 could only match in terms of drive out of the corners.
Bridgestone’s motorcycle tyre development is currently led by Kouji Terada, who explained that their basic priority with any tyre development is good stability, and once this has been achieved Bridgestone work to add other aspects such as grip on top as it were. He goes on to say “MotoGP is a good field to test our tyres and technologies. It is where we can know the performance of our product in the ultimate conditions”.
When asked specifically how MotoGP contributes towards their road tyres he says:
“Bridgestone has been improving grip and wear through MotoGP. When we first participate in MotoGP we have qualifying tyres which last only a couple of laps. Now we don’t use them, but the lap times of the current race tyre is shorter. We have succeeded to develop faster tyres with longer life.”
No where is this more evident than in the time trial figures shown in the MCN test. A new sport touring tyre is quicker around the track than a ten year old hypersport tyre, and it’s also designed to deliver the high mileage yields expected by today’s touring riders. He also goes on to say that the Battlax R10 racing street tyre could be faster than the pure racing tyres of 20 years ago. How far we have come…..
